Out In
by Autore
Summary: This story takes place at the beginning of sophomore year  season 1 . It will swap Kurt Hummel and Dave Karofsky, in role if not character, while staying as close to canon as possible. This story is about closeted Kurt and out Dave.  Collab with Aly .
1. Chapter 1

Okay, so my young life wasn't the same as most other kids, but it's probably been pretty similar to many kids out there.

Early on, I started to realize that I wasn't like most of the other kids around me. It started in fifth grade. The signs were probably there earlier, if I'd been mature enough to see them, but I wasn't. I mean, how could I be? My friend Finn and I went swimming one Saturday at the local community center. I remember having a lot of fun, splashing around and goofing off. We were close back then. But then we headed into the locker rooms to change because our parents had come to pick us up. Now I'd started growing hair in places other than my head by that point, and I guess I was one of the first in my class to do that. I don't know if it was envy or curiosity or whatever, but Finn noticed that I'd grown some pubes, and he brought it up. Loudly. With laughter.

Now, it was a natural thing obviously, but I didn't know that back then, and I asked him why it was such a big deal. Was there something wrong with me? Didn't he have hair down there too? I asked him, looking down at his towel-wrapped crotch and back up to see... he looked horrified. He told me it was none of my business, that I was a freak and that I shouldn't be looking at other guy's dicks. I didn't get how I was the freak since he obviously looked at mine first. He went to the other side of the locker room to get dressed, and being so frustrated and confused with his behavior I started to cry. It didn't make sense. I had no idea what was wrong with me or why he'd reacted that way. So I liked looking at other boys. Big deal. Was that really a bad thing?

Finn left the locker room after he got dressed without saying anything to me. I just sat there. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't want my dad to see me cry. Not like I had a choice, though. He came into the room a few minutes later, annoyed and wondering why he'd seen Finn leave with his mom but I was still inside, but then he saw I was crying and sat down next to me. I tried to stop. I fucking hate crying. I told him what happened and how I felt, and asked him why I felt the way I did. None of what had happened made any sense to me. I was pissed off and I didn't even really understand why. He gave me a hug. His hugs always had a way calming me down. Whispering in my ear as he held me he told me it was alright, that Finn was wrong, that I had nothing to worry about. Then he told me that he'd like me to talk to someone, because it might help me feel better about what happened.

I started going to a counselor once a month. I never really knew what to say, and the questions she asked were pretty ordinary. Mostly just stuff about my day, my friends, how was school, how was my home life. At the time, I didn't really get why my dad wanted me to go, but since Finn and I weren't talking anymore and I didn't really have many friends left to hang out with, I liked the company she provided. It wasn't just Finn though. Noah and Matt didn't talk to me anymore either. I figured that Finn'd told them about what happened in the locker room. That only made me more depressed. My counselor helped me cope with it, though.

Still, years went by before I feel I really made any progress with her. Besides helping me deal with my former friends, she helped me to feel more comfortable talking about myself. Eventually, I told her how I really felt back in fifth grade when Finn got mad at me and ran away. It hurt, not just because I liked him...but because I really, really liked him. That got us to talking, and she asked me a mess of questions, more specific than the kind I'd been used to from her. She asked me what I thought of when I saw girls. I told her girls were okay, you know? They were just...girls. She asked me what I thought of when I saw boys. I didn't answer for a few minutes, my palms got sweaty, and I looked out the window. She asked again, kindly, and told me that it was alright, whatever I felt was alright and I could tell her. I found myself hesitating, because I'd never really thought about other guys in the way I assumed she was asking. Or at least I didn't think I'd ever thought about them like that consciously. So I told her that I thought boys were pretty...great. She nodded and took down some notes, clearly my pause was notable to her. "What does that mean?" I asked her, because I knew that other boys in school didn't think other boys were pretty. "It doesn't mean anything, David. You're perfectly fine." She smiled and put her hand on my shoulder. I was perfectly fine.

The sessions lasted through the summer following my junior high graduation, and my counselor and I decided that they were probably no longer necessary. Still, I keep her number in my phone, and she told me to call her should I ever need to talk. Going into high school, though, knowing that I'm gay, but having told no one yet, not even my dad...I had a feeling she and I would probably talk again.

Freshman year was lonely. I didn't really make any new friends. I guess the reputation and the rumors followed me. Whatever, it didn't matter. I concentrated on my classes and I managed to get on the honor roll every quarter. I kept to myself, avoiding Finn and Noah, or Puck as he went by now. They had joined football, and while I would have loved to be out there playing with them, it was just too awkward.

As sophomore year started, though, I hoped things could be different. In fact, the very first week I ended up making a friend. I was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch, by myself as usual, and this girl came up and sat down with me. It's not like I wasn't used to the occasional loser or outcast sitting down with me. Sometimes they'd even try some small talk. Usually they just wanted someplace to sit where they wouldn't be picked on, and loser or not, people generally didn't mess with me too badly, probably because I was bigger than most of them. This girl was different, though. I mean, yea, she might not have been popular, but she wasn't shy or nerdy or wimpy like others I'd run into. She came right up and sat down across from me.

"So I bet you're wondering who this fine, curvaceous diva is sitting across from you," she smirked out, all pearly whites and raised brows as she fingered through her side dish of tater-tots, "The name is Mercedes Jones, in case you didn't already know."

I found myself frowning at her, my eyes scanning their corners carefully in case she happened to be talking to someone else. Staring back at her, I almost started laughing as one of her already propped up brows shot higher at my silence. She...was trying to talk to me? Why? Before I even had a chance to stammer out some kind of reply, she'd already kept yapping.

"Look, I know you've got like...no idea who I am. My super cool vibe actually doesn't do much for the fellas at this school, but you...I don't know," she murmured deflated of her previous ego, brown eyes narrowing in on me as she leaned into the table in front of us,"there's something different about you. My only guess is that since you aren't in football or with the puck-heads you must be a closet case. My question is...-"

I tensed up as she said the words, "closet case," looking around to see if anyone else was looking my way, wondering if she was about to out me. I was comfortable enough with who I was inside, but the thought of telling people was still pretty scary.

"Why are you hiding them pipes from the Glee Club?"

"Wait, wait? Glee Club?"

"Yea. We're looking for more members. Looking at you, I bet you can belt out a number or two." She smiled at me, looking into my eyes in a way that made me a little nervous.

"Oh...I dunno. I've never really been much of a singer. I mean, I haven't sung in front of people or anything."

"It's not that hard. I bet you'd be good at it. Anyway, what have you got to lose?"

I thought about it, and looked around the room again, noticing my nearly empty table and frowning. I looked across the room at the football players, where Finn sat and laughed and joked with Puck and the others. Turning back to Mercedes, I sighed heavily before replying, "Sure, why not?"

After lunch, I followed Mercedes to the community board and put my name on the sign-up sheet. There weren't many names there, and that didn't help my nerves any, but I figured maybe I'd make a couple friends, and hey, a couple friends are better than none, right? Later that afternoon, after final period, Mercedes showed up outside my locker. Not even sure how she knew where it was, but whatever. I barely had any time to grab my books before she was dragging me down the hallway to the auditorium for auditions. I tried to tell her that I wasn't ready, but she wouldn't listen. Once I got there, Mr. Schuester asked me what I would be singing, and I blanked. After thinking about it for a minute, I replied.

"Uh...I guess New York, New York?" Like I've said, I never really sang in front of anyone before, but I like to sing in the shower, and I kinda have a thing for the old crooners. My dad would always play stuff by the Rat Pack, so I kinda grew up listening to them.

"Frank Sinatra? Great choice, David. Get up there and show us what you've got!"

I nodded and slowly headed for the stage. Once there, I waited, and when the piano dude started playing I took a deep breath and started singing, thankful that the auditorium was basically empty except for Mr. Schuester and a couple other kids who were trying out. After I finished, I pretty much wanted to run off the stage, but I waited.

Mr. Schuester stood up clapping. "Very good! You've really got a great voice! You'll make a great addition to the club. Thank you, David."

I was still nervous, but I managed to smile as I nodded and got down off the stage to take a seat next to Mercedes.

"I knew you had it in you, white boy," she said as she turned to me and smiled, resting her hand briefly on mine.

"Uh, yea. Thanks."

Then she got up and headed to the stage so that she could try out her number, as I sat there with a grin on my face.

Our first rehearsal was...well it was kind of a disaster. We weren't very good. At all. And apparently that didn't sit well with Rachel, our resident diva, who decided to make some insulting comments and storm out. I thought that this would be a good experience, a way for me to make some friends, but I was starting to lose hope in that idea.

Our next few rehearsals didn't manage to go much better than the first, and it was starting to seem fairly pointless to keep going. But then Mr. Schue showed up with a new member that he managed to recruit...Finn Hudson. I kept my cool, I didn't say a word, but inside I was cursing. Why did it have to be Finn Fucking Hudson? I don't know what made it worse, though: the fact that Finn was now in the same club as me...or the fact that he didn't even seem to think there was anything wrong with that. He looked my way when he came into the room, and our eyes met for a few seconds before he looked away, and basically pretended I wasn't even there. I was just freakin' furniture. Well, if he didn't want to acknowledge what went down between us so many years ago, I sure as hell wasn't going to.

Rehearsal began, and we were doing You're The One That I Want from Grease and, well apparently Finn can sing, and apparently I wasn't the only one to notice. Rachel practically molested him on stage before Mercedes stepped in demanding a lead role. Mr. Schue shot her down, though, and I had to agree, as much as I hated doing it: it was the first time we sounded good since we started rehearsing.

Rehearsals went much better after Finn joined, and I got used to the fact that he seemed to have no intention of acknowledging our past...or apologizing for it. It seemed like we might actually manage after all. Or at least until Mr. Schue took us on a field trip to Carmel High to see their glee club, Vocal Adrenaline, perform. They were great. Like, really really great, and we were shit. And as if that wasn't enough, Mr. Schue let us know a few days later that he was resigning from teaching, and so obviously he wasn't going to be leading New Directions anymore. With Mr. Schue gone, Rachel took over, and well, things just didn't seem so hopeful anymore. On top of that, with Mr. Schue gone, Finn left too, not that it was any skin off my nose.

A couple days later, though, while Tina, Mercedes and I were fighting with Rachel over her latest choreography, Finn showed up with Artie and apologized, not just for quitting, but for his behavior toward us in the past, for throwing pee balloons at me, for...well for his friends nailing my lawn furniture to the roof, since he was apparently not involved in that. Still, it was a nice gesture and much appreciated. He didn't apologize for fifth grade, or for ruining my reputation, but I decided whatever, I should just let it go. He basically took charge, gave us all roles, and...well it felt good. It felt like, hey, maybe we can do this even without Mr. Schue. And for me personally, I was thankful because it meant maybe a new start. I had friends again for the first time in years.

We practiced. A lot. And it was tough, but in the end, when the six of us got up in stage, the jazz band backing us, in our costumes, and we belted out Don't Stop Believin', it felt good. Like, really good. It felt like we accomplished something, like we weren't just a bunch of losers. At the end of our performance, Schuester came into the auditorium and applauded us, and at this point he told us that he wasn't leaving after all, and that he was going to keep leading the glee club. We all thought that that was pretty great news. While we managed to sing one song up to par, I have to say I was relieved someone would be taking the reigns back from Finn and Rachel, as good as they'd done for us.

One thing that did have me worried, though, was that we seemed to have an audience while we rehearsed, and none of them seemed too happy about it. I could swear I saw Coach Sylvester and a couple of the cheerleaders up top in the auditorium glaring down at us, and I definitely saw an angry looking Puck and that Hummel kid that I think has been in a few of my classes over the years. Never really talked to him much, though. I hope I was wrong, but I had a bad feeling about it.


	2. Chapter 2

I've seen and handled a lot in my sixteen years of life here in Lima, Ohio.

I've had to deal with the death of my mother early on, and while most people assume it's the hardest for a child, in my experience it was harder for my father. He tried to make dinner not more than a month after her passing, most likely discovering that a constant diet of Chinese take-out and pizza wasn't very healthy or practical for me. The Parmesan chicken smelled right, and I anticipated the piece that would join my lumpy mashed potatoes and over-cooked asparagus, but if the side courses were any indication of what was to come I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. I did though, I wanted that meal to go right, because it would mean something for the both of us. A sign that we'd be okay, able to move on without her there. It was raw though. We laughed at it for all of a minute until we realized that it shouldn't have been funny. After that he tried lasagna and meatloaf, not together mind you, but they both were thoroughly burned beyond recognition.

Watching him struggle like that, I didn't fully understand the entirety of his emotions then, but I thought I'd helped him feel better that one Saturday night. I'd gotten the idea from my friend, Finn Hudson, at elementary school that previous Friday. He'd lost his father before he was even born, apparently in Operation Desert Storm, and there were times he'd find his mom crying in the laundry room while trying to fold their clothes. This particular time his father's shirt had made its way into the bin somehow and she'd discovered it. He told me he'd gotten the idea to do the laundry for her next time, that way she wouldn't have to. He started blushing as he told me he'd unknowingly put too much detergent in the machine, his mom came in and found him covered in suds. It cheered her up.

So that's how I came to the conclusion that I'd cook for my father. How hard could it be, right? That Saturday I burned my thumb over the steamed pasta I attempted to cook, and my over-protective dad would've been rushing me to the hospital if I hadn't been so adamant that he try what I produced. The spoonful I shoved into his protesting mouth must have been pretty good, because the next thing I knew he was asking if I wanted to take a few classes for cooking at the local community center while he iced my singed digit. It was there, at Lima Community Center, I discovered my love and skill for baking, and where I learned a new word: fag.

I didn't understand why those boys were so sure that was what I was or even why it was necessarily a bad thing to be called, but their sneering faces were evidence enough that I and the word they associated with me was hate-driven. They'd taken and stomped on the cupcakes I'd made for my father, told me stop being a little 'fruit', and even though I didn't know what I'd done wrong I wanted to right it. I never realized the looks I'd gotten as a kindergartner, my attire and mannerisms were cute and boyish at that age, but I guess as time moved forward I'd been expected to grow out of bow-ties and wanting to be a sophisticated Englishman with his companions sipping tea, our pinkies properly extended. How was I to know I was in the wrong if it hadn't been for these kids pinching harshly at my dress shirt and kicking ruthlessly at my boots?

I didn't cry. Not that I couldn't if I wanted to, I just...didn't. It wasn't that what they were doing had no effect on me, it hurt. Like a puppy scolded by it's master and wanting nothing but to get back into their good graces. I'd never known those boys beforehand, but maybe I was still too young to have enough respect for my own image to care what others thought. Perhaps it was Hummel pride that kept me from breaking down, or because I knew what would happen if I did. My father was extremely protective, almost smothering in a way and as much I could've found myself appreciating his encouragement and the tirade that would follow, I didn't want him getting involved in this. No one was so cruel without vindication, right?

Looking back now I guess it should have been apparent, how wrong I was becoming, how abnormal I was starting to shape. The most obvious evidence of my difference from the average eleven-year old was that any time I asked if Finn could come over, if I forgot to steer the tall boy away he and my father wound up spending hours on end in front of the television watching something I had no interest in. After a few repeats of that I decided that something, myself to be precise, needed to change. So I asked and reassured my father that I really wanted to buy different clothes, less dressy, fancy stuff and more plain t-shirts and jeans. It took a bit more persuading for him to buy that I really did want to play baseball, that I wanted him to explain the rules of football, but as my requests sank in I saw the light in his eyes at discovering his son, the boy he could connect to. Letting go of the fashion sense of old and fully immersing myself in what he and Finn enjoyed was surprisingly easy, the husk of that former boy joined my mother without a fight.

As a freshman I hoped to solidify the image I'd built up for myself, mainly by trying out for the football team. The guys already on the team who didn't know me, practically everyone aside from Finn and Puck, started laughing when I showed up on the field. I tried not to let it bother me, but it did of course. No matter how hard I tried, my wiry frame only developed so much muscle mass with baseball in middle school and my voice, well...I wasn't sure if it had already cracked or if it was ever planning to. Even with my learned knowledge and interest in sports, my everyday wardrobe, and overall attempts at dude-bro behavior, I still from time to time was assumed to be a gay guy. I resolved to prove them wrong.

All it took was a square kick in the center of some pigskin for them to take me in as their new kicker. Their previous jokes diminished in the face of my affinity for kicking a ball. This was going to be great, or so I thought. You see, I'd never had to shower in front of someone before. Getting bathed by your father as a toddler is harmless and you aren't really aware of being modest about your nudity at that age, so its far more awkward to undress in front of anyone as a teenager, more so around a ton of other guys.

I averted my eyes, and pretended as though I couldn't find my towel in the sports bag I carried until most of them were already undressed and safely covered by the stalls of their showers. I shouldn't have been so nervous, but it was weird and nobody seemed to mind my apprehension, they all must have felt this way when they started too, I gather. Sitting there on the warm wooden bench, I draped my towel over myself and slid carefully out of my padding, taking my jockstrap with it in one tug. My blood burned at the feel of my nudity, and I was certain I was blushing at being so exposed. Standing hesitantly, I secured my towel and headed over to the stall next to Puck and began the task of removing the sweat and grime off my body.

"For a minute there I thought you were going to pussy out like a little girl and quit the team. Welcome to the Titans bro," he mumbled with a slight leer in my direction. I wasn't sure what to make of the pounding in my heart, but I think it was my heart restarting itself after the nerves it had to endure getting undressed. Everything would be okay. I was officially one of the guys and I had two of the top dogs as friends. Freshman year was a piece of cake.

So knowing what you do about me now, imagine my utter dismay when I discover that Finn, no more than at least what...two? Three weeks into our sophomore year is a part of the Glee Club. Here's the guy who my father practically wanted to adopt, doing exactly what I imagined I would've been doing had I decided to just maybe, press forward past those boy's bothering me those years ago, to take the limited interest and attention I could from my father, and just find satisfaction in that. He tried to shake Puck and I about his plans for Saturday, something about helping his mother with chores since she'd had her prostate checked, but amidst watching Puck's own brand of conditioning beforehand, which consisted of him pelting one of the non-varsity level players repeatedly in the helmet, I heard Coach Tanaka say something about Finn deciding if he was football player or a singer.

Puck isn't a genius, neither is he completely inept, so when I stayed silent and he replied to Finn that his situation was a "tough break", I wasn't sure if he truly believed him or if he was just letting it slide. I very well could have left it alone, the whole ordeal I mean, because with Finn in the Glee Club my spotlight in my father's life would've been more concrete than ever. I should have let it be, but I don't know if it was some sort of brotherly compassion that urged me to save him from not only a ruined social status and the torment of those who would inevitably call his sexuality into question over his choice, or if I was just curious to know whether Puckerman really believed that women had prostates.

"Chicks don't have prostates," he stated firmly to a demur-looking Finn who'd just rounded the corner, "I looked it up."

Actually I told him.

Asked him rather, if he really thought that they did, which led him to frown at me and hop onto Google. It didn't take much to figure out that Finn had lied, not that I didn't already know he was lying, or where our quarterback had disappeared to. What with the small bus of those glee clubbers plus one teenage tree piling inside it was clear, to me anyway, Puck had to have it explained another time. Standing here now with the rest of the team, everyone equipped with paintball guns except for me, I guess it should have been painfully obvious who the instigator of this flash mob was, but Puck was a convenient and convincing puppet-ruler nonetheless.

"You broke the rules, and for that you must be punished." Puck admonished him, the horde of jock advancing on the tree of a teenage male who cowered back against the wall behind him.

"W-wait wait wai- Y-you've got the power here! You don't have to do this!" he pleaded to us as the sound of ammunition locking into place filled my ears.

I nodded wordlessly, and one by one they fired neon green rounds into his denim jacket as I looked on at the harmless carnage and smiled. I really was trying to help him. I guess I didn't realize my puppet-ruler would take the reigns from me and try again at keeping Finn in place among the jocks.

I hadn't planned for the team to put that whee-...Artie in that porta-potty, but I saw it for what it was. One last attempt to coerce Finn back to where he belonged. Finn rebelled, took the guy out of the foul manual bathroom, and told the team that he wasn't afraid to be called a loser. I can honestly say that I'm not sure whether I found his determination admirable or foolish.

I couldn't stop myself from flinching when Puck vehemently nicknamed the Glee Club "Homo Explosion", but my response was entirely because of the casualness in his words. Those kinds of labels bothered me. The mo-hawked delinquent tried to smile off Finn's willful disobedience of how our social order we meant to run, but it was clear he'd shaken Puck's confidence. Not mine though. I knew better.

No matter how much fun, how right he felt on that stage later that week singing "Don't Stop Believing" with the rest of those outcasts, it was wrong and he knew it. Puck, and myself by association, had tried to convince him, but if he wouldn't heed our warning then it was only a matter of time before someone bigger tried to scare him off.


End file.
